Thanks for the response Coto. So EWR is not a given prison sentence for guys that commute form parts out West then? I know its hard to predict, but is this trend rather consistent when it comes time for new hires once all the UA guys have been given a shot?

Getting guam is probably less then 5% and if you dodge that its 50/50 ewr iah. If you got one you didn't want it would take one bid to get the other one.

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, if it would take one bid to get from EWR to IAH, how often do those bids occur? Is this referring to the system bid that seems to run every few months? Are you guys thinking if SFO opened up for the 737, would that have a potential of making a base like LAX or SFO even more obtainable within a year or so? Again I understand this is all best guesses here and anything can change in a second, but the general rule of thumbs are helpful none the less.

Usually every six months. Contract is more specific but six months is usual.

Not entirely true. The last system bid had a couple of United pilots holding CLE with some vacancies still remaining in CLE at that time. Someone asked where United pilots were being based so I did a tabulation of the bid results with the various vacancies still remaining and posted the results on here for those interested to see. Was a bit surprised myself to see CLE have any vacancies let alone that much movement. But appears the opening of ORD caused quite a bit of movement in the CLE base.

Why would anyone want to bid into a shrinking base?

If you lived in said shrinking base and were willing to deal with all that comes with downsizing, wouldn't you?

I would say just one bid to get from ewr to iah on the 737. If you get the 757/767 then no. Any other base will take longer, not sure how long. LAX or SFO, if its created, I would think is too hard to predict, but if I were to bet I would say more then a year. I know UAL guys have gotten LAX in less then a year, but I wouldn't use past results in predicting futures results in this case, LAX hasn't been around long enough.

Very helpful info from you all. Is it permitted over there to drop out of a trip in IAH for example to pick up an uncovered LAX trip over the same time frame, or is that frowned upon?

good luck with that. My understanding is that lax reserves are routinely deheaded to iah and ewr to cover trips. Is it possible yes, is it likely no. Like 1 in a million.